The Daily City Guides

Monday, February 21, 2011

TheDailyCity.com Orlando Food Truck Bazaar

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TheDailyCity.com Food Truck Bazaar

TheDailyCity.com Food Truck Bazaar (About, Twitter, Facebook) is the original travelling gourmet food truck event in Central Florida. Creator and Producer Mark Baratelli turned a one-time event on March 31 2011 into a 10-town-per-month traveling event with an average attendance of 500- 1,000 in each town. Become a Sponsor. It helps each town it visits, too, by bringing foot traffic to area shops and restaurants (yes restaurants!) and giving the locals in each town it visits one more reason to gather and commune. It also promotes both the mobile vending industry and the Orlando food truck scene. The event itself is family-friendly atmosphere and dog-friendly. The Food Truck Bazaar has also done special event work for City of Orlando, Visit Orlando, Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Stetson University, Rotary Club of Winter Garden, Brevard Symphony Orchestra, Department of Transportation, City Arts Factory, Edgewater High School, Orlando Fringe Festival, Full Sail University, GameStop, Orlando Gay Pride Parade, Glenridge Middle School, Town of Harmony, Howard Middle School, Ivanhoe Village Jingle Eve (3 years), City of Orlando Holiday Lights Orlando (2 years), St Margaret Mary Church, Palmers Feed Store, Port Orange Family Days, Shampooch, The Rep (Orlando Rep Theatre), Street Soccer Challenge, Timber Creek High School, Audubon Park Business District, Lake Nona YMCA

TheDailyCity.com has been a proponent of food trucks dating back to 2009 with our Taco Truck Taste Test food truck meetups. One truck at a time, we'd invite readers to try food truck food, explore new parts of the city and support small businesses. Also in 2009, we took the idea of food trucks and thought, "If you can sell food from a vehicle, what else can you sell?" and launched TheDailyCity.com Mobile Art Show, a monthly show in downtown Orlando that takes place in a moving van. So we've had a long-time obsession with mobile vending! In 2010, we read about the Hells Kitchen Food Truck Bazaar, loved the idea, but thought it was a bit too ambitious for us to tackle. So, we blogged about it and left it at that. In January 2011, the owner of Red Eye BBQ food truck suggested we were the ideal people to put on a food truck event like the gatherings happening in Miami and across the country. With his vote of confidence, we made an official announcement February 2, 2011 and watched it come to life March 29, 2011.

Producer

The Orlando Business Journal named Mark Baratelli (About | Facebook) a 2012 40 Under 40 award recipient and the Orlando Weekly said "If everyone in Orlando who claims to care about the arts had 1 percent of (Mark) Baratelli’s energy and commitment, this city would be a world culture capital." That same newspaper named him 2012 + 2011 Best Local Advocate and 2010 Best Arts Advocate. He created and Produced Orlando Improv Festival, Audience Choice Awards and Mobile Art Show. His event The Food Truck Bazaar won 2012 Best Local Food Event from Edible Orlando Magazine (2nd), 2012 Best Monthly Event from YELP Orlando, earned him a 2012 BizBash Best Event Producer nomination and earned him the title of "The Pied Piper of Food Trucks" from the Orlando Business Journal.

Well Mr. Mark!I would like to thank you for putting me out there in the "press" column"!!!! I really enjoy writing about "local" spots & this post had to be one of my favorites :)Can't wait for the Truck Bazaar!Much LoveLa Petite Floridienne

If you're a surfer, the north shore of Oahu has quite a few trucks, most notably the Blue Hawaiian Food truck. They park opposite Haleiwa Joe's in the gas station parking lot. Great food and Great price for surf and turf. ;)

akwolfie: You're right. All the trucks *are* the same. The only differences are that there will be no Cafe Rouge 8/22 and there will be Wako Taco and Dixieland Diner added. I will look into that. Variety is definitely needed. But there may be a reason it got scheduled that way I am not aware of. Thanks for the feedback!